The UK Daily Mail had two heart-breaking articles about the health care system, seniors, and what is known as the Liverpool Care Pathway. It is basically not much different than the UK version of Hospice. You put a dying person in the system and watch them die, in the most “humane” version possible.

This is where The Pink Flamingo must go on record stating that I have absolutely no use what-so-ever for hospice. As far as I’m concerned, hospice was responsible for the “humane” deaths of two of my grandparents. There are locations where hospice is a God-send. This is especially true when someone is in the last hours of cancer, or a terminal disease. My problem is the well-meaning person who decides that hospice needs to be brought in because mama needs a morphine drip to put her down so they can go to Europe as scheduled.

The articles from the UK tell the horrors of the LCP. Family members will call up to the hospital or care center to check on family, only to discover they are dead, thanks to the humane auspices of the “care pathway”. It was designed to make death as easy, convenient, comfortable, and quick as possible. A person must “sign-up” for it rather like they sign-up for post season tickets for the Braves (that’s a crock). Okay, bad analogy, the Braves rarely make it beyond a certain point. Okay, they must sign on to it the way you do registering to vote. Bad analogy. If you are not a white male, you have a chance of being purged from the voter rolls the way a binge-purger tosses up her 5000 calorie breakfast.

In the UK, a person must agree to the end of life program. Evidently, though, it’s being taken advantage of, by “well-meaning” medical personnel who get their kicks terminating the life of the useless old fartes, especially women. Now, before you get all into bashing the UK’s version of socialized medicine, you’d better do a little research here in the US. The same thing happens on a daily bases, here. It’s called a Morphine Drip. Hospice specializes in it – murdering your grandparents this way. (Yea, The Pink Flamingo has issues with hospice).

So, now the UK is starting to investigate stories about the elderly being put down the way someone would an old dog or cat. Loving, caring families who have dumped their elderly in nursing homes, or hospitals and call up once or twice a week are shocked to discover their loved ones are no longer among the living.

Cry me a river and tell it to someone who cares. If they had been caring for their family member, the situation would never have happened. Anyone who has elderly parents or loved ones, and truly cares, makes sure that those people are never ever ever left alone in a facility if they are not ambulatory, or able to use a phone on their own. And, you leave a charged cell phone with them.

The tales we find here, from the UK are about people who have basically dumped their elderly, hoping that the loving heath-care providers are going to take good care of them. Fat chance that. Unless you personally know someone in the unit, or have someone in a very good ICU, you never leave them.

This is where The Pink Flamingo gives KUDOS to the hospital here in Lincoln County. They have an excellent little ICU, and have very good nursing care, with no more than a dozen rarely used room per nursing team. When my mother was down with pneumonia a few years ago, they were incredible, but still, my niece came and stayed, night and day, with her. We had friends in and out the entire time. When someone couldn’t be there, I paid someone to be up there with her. You do this, and the chance of something care-wise, going wrong, is greatly limited.

The stories out of the UK, that are featured in the Daily Mail are primarily about families who have trusted in the medical system. Most are trusting, but aren’t spending as much time with their family members as possible. You go off and leave an elderly person alone, in a hospital for 2 weeks and these they die. It’s that simple.

I don’t have much respect for people like this. They are so busy with their lives that they really don’t give a damn about their elderly. Then, when something happens, they blame the medical profession. It gives death panels a whole new meaning – and that’s probably what those so-called death panels, which don’t exist in Obamacare, are about.

People who expect the medical profession to be warm, fuzzy, and compassionate with their elderly family members are living in a fool’s world. You can’t. Your elderly dog or cat will get better care than your elderly mother or father will.

There are wonderful health care professionals out there who love their patients and will do the very best for them. They are the rule. It is the exception that kills people. There are too many in the “exception” column to allow someone to be in control of your loved one.

It’s terrifying, daunting, and incredibly frustrating. As someone who has primary care for an 82 year old mother with a very bad heart, and an 88 year old father with Alzheimer’s, you don’t know what to do, half the time. What I do know, though, is that you never leave someone alone in a hospital, not this day and age, for very long. If you must, you make irregular checks at the hospital, take along free Starbucks for the staff, and become their best friend. It’s pricy, but well worth it. I’m talking lunch trays, flowers, a large cheesecake, thank you notes – you name it. It’s a sign that you care about what they are doing, and are well aware of what they are doing. You get better care and become part of your family member’s health care “team”.

It isn’t easy. It’s expensive, frustrating, and time consuming. The alternative is no life at all.

When you go off and basically toss mama into the ward and ignore her, don’t blame the hospital when she turns up dead. Go look in the mirror.

The Morphine treatment is already being used in nursing homes in the USA. They routinely give drugs to elderly seniors to keep them quiet. Recently, I went to visit a friend of mine in a nursing home. It was about 9 o’clock in the morning. She was sitting in the hall in a wheelchair sleeping soundly. No one could get her to wake up to talk to me. It was obvious that she was heavily drugged and not sleeping naturally……..I also read today that in the UK people with criminal backgrounds are being given jobs as caregivers. I wonder if their backgrounds are screened in the USA. One of my friends had her credit card stolen by a Home Health Care nurse. They caught and arrested her when she started using the card and opened up a PO Box. ……… Death Panels may not exist under Obamacare, but the Independent Payment Advisory Board is alive and well. This is what Paul Ryan was talking about in the debate the other night when he was rudely cut off by Biden. Biden was the only one who mentioned death panels. All Ryan was trying to do was to explain that it was a way of controlling Medicare costs. Obviously, Biden wanted the American people to believe that IPAB does not exist. Why try to hide this? Beginning in 2014 once Medicare spending exceeds certain levels, IPAB will be required to recommend spending reductions to Medicare providers and suppliers, Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drug Plans There could be deep cuts to doctors’ pay which may force doctors to stop accepting Medicare patients.Down here, many doctors are not accepting new patients, Medicare of otherwise Also, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) may accomplish what IPAB will not do in the way of controlling costs. Since Fee for Service is being blamed for high healthcare costs, ACO’s will be a shared savings program. Read about it on page 126 in Medicare and You 2013. (You do not have to share your health information) I was recently assigned to an ACO and I was told today that it is to be a shared savings program among the doctors in the network. If the program saves money, the doctors and pharmacies involved in the plan will divide the savings among themselves. This will be one of the ways doctors get paid under Obamacare. While we are being told that there will be no health care rationing, whether this proves to be true or not remains to be seen.

The Pink Flamingo Recommends

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”--Sinclair Lewis

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SJ Reidhead (aka The Pink Flamingo) is a writer based in New Mexico. The author of two published novels, both westerns: Dust Devil and The Second Mrs. Earp and two published works of non-fictions: TRAVESTY: Frank Waters Earp Agenda Exposed and A Church for Helldorado, Endicott Peabody's 1882 Tombstone Diary. One of the leading authorities on the life of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone during the Earp years, she is currently writing a series of murder mysteries set in modern day Tombstone. The author is also working on a book about fashion in the Wild West. When complete, there will be over 2100 unpublished antique photographs dating from 1855-1910.

The author's work has appeared in Wild West, True West, Blogcritics, and The Tombstone Times. Recently the author has had to deal with a father in Stage 4 Alzheimer's Disease. This is leading to a book dealing with the frustrations of dealing with the frustrations of the disease, finance, legal, health-care, and things no one bothers telling families about it.

SJ Reidhead has been involved in Republican politics since she was 'a little kid'. During the Reagan years she was a lobbyist working with various non-profit organizations who were attempting to salvage NASA and the American space program after the disastrous Carter years. Unfortunately, because of the libertarian take-over of the GOP, and the rise of the Tea Parties, as the Republican Party becomes more and more extreme and marginalized, it is impossible to remain loyal to the GOP. The Pink Flamingoremains GOP in order to try to bring the party back to what it once was. I fear it is an impossible task.

The Pink Flamingo went on line on October 4, 2005, after the author realized "normal" Republicans were being marginalized as the extreme far right attempts to become the new normal. In November, 2012, The Pink Flamingo, for the first time ever, voted for a Democrat, Barack Obama. Normal will never again apply to the GOP.

THE PINK FLAMINGO STORY

It started out as a joke. During the seven years I worked with the girls of my parish, leading a youth group, one of the things that I stressed were manners. Part of having manners, the way I see it, is to know how to set a proper table, host a party, cater it, and clean up afterward. I was fortunate enough to have a group of very talented girls in my youth group. They learned how to plan for, and execute large church functions, very properly. During one such function I noticed there were several incredibly tacky pink flamingos sitting on the table. Knowing the girls were up to something, I said nothing. A few months later they did the same thing at a function I was hosting at my home. I said nothing. They had a birthday party for me. More pink flamingos appeared - and a joke was born.

Thanks to the girls, all of whom are now grown, I have a collection of pink flamingos. It has become an ongoing joke. When I began working on my political blog, I realized the only possibly title was The Pink Flamingo!